Culture
Here is the sermon I'm preaching tomorrow. This is the 4th in a series of 8 sermons under the theme -- Seven Cultural Challenges Each Church Faces. I hope your Sunday is wonderful! Seven Cultural Challenges Each Church Faces Materialism: Why Do We Have So Much Stuff? Luke
Creativity
Over at Harvard Business's online blog, Umair Haque launches a blistering attack on Wonga, a UK payday lender that charges 2,689% annual interest! In other words, a $100 loan paid back a year later will cost the borrower $2,689. Incredibly, Haque points out that three venture
church as abbey
In all the conversation about churches and change, one particular topic seems to be the unmentioned gorilla in the room -- clergy pay. By clergy pay, I mean what most of us had in mind when we went to seminary -- "I'll get this great theological education
Congregation
Jeff Jarvis, journalism guru and author of What Would Google Do? quoted from my post The Future of Churches: A Network of Niches. Needless to say, I'm honored and thrilled. Jarvis is one of the prophetic voices who warned of the decline of newspapers when everyone else was
economics
Politicians and pundits quickly found an easy target to pin the nation's economic crisis on -- homeowners who bought more house than they could afford. I, for one, think we should stop blaming homeowners for bad public policy, poor government oversight, and greedy lenders. "But," the
economics
Two stories encouraged me this week -- the school employees who took one day's pay cut to save the jobs of 7 colleagues; and, a politician's wife who offered a house rent-free to a homeless woman and her family. In this increasingly difficult economy maybe we
Culture
Tomorrow we will be awarded a grant of $11,500 for equipment and software to use in art camps we're planning for this summer. This grant comes about 6-months after we submitted a grant request summary. The summary piqued their interest and we were asked by the local
Congregation
I can't get Julie Clawson's words out of my head -- We couldn’t attract enough people willing to give enough money to pay our salary and so the church failed. Julie was responding to Dan Kimball's critique of missional churches as opposed to
bless the world
One of the things I learned while I attended seminary in Texas was that dominoes are for more than lining up and knocking down. Be that as it may, we're headed for an ecclesiastical domino effect brought to us by an economy in recession -- a recession, we
Culture
"In wildness is the preservation of the world," wrote Henry David Thoreau in his groundbreaking book, Walden. With Thoreau as a starting point, Bill McKibben has assembled the finest, most comprehensive anthology of American environmental writing one could hope to find. The combined work of 101 authors, running
bless the world
Here's the powerpoint I used in my NOC2008 workshop, Small Churches Make Good Neighbors. I'm using the abbey church model, and discussing the 10 aspects of the ancient celtic abbeys applied to churches today. The ppt is on SlideShare, so you can view and download the
Culture
I've been writing about the coming, and now present, economic crisis since last year (here, here, and here). Popular financial advisor, Suze Orman, speaking on Anderson Cooper's show tonight, said that the economy is in "intensive care" right now and will be for a